In a recent press conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Aung San Suu Kyi, was forced to address the Rohingya issue. Up until then she had been conspicuously silent on the matter, her views were ambiguous and punctuated by an advisory sent from the Burmese Foreign Ministry she leads to foreign ambassadors “not to use the term Rohingya.” As we know this advisement was sent out after Burmese Buddhist nationalists held anti-Rohingya protests, demanding the name not be used. Suu Kyi caved to the extremists, lending more credence to the belief that she is either unwilling or incapable of repulsing the rampant hate perpetrated by fear mongering monks and their followers.
At the press conference Suu Kyi asked for more “space” to resolve the issue, but she also reiterated that the name Rohingya not be used since it is “emotive.” She differentiated herself from the hardliners by stating that the Rohingya should also not be called “Bengali.” Bengali is used derogatively by anti-Rohingyans to imply that Rohingya are illegal immigrants who came from Bangladesh. Other terms that she could have spoken out against include the racist use of “Kalar,” a term analogous to “n*****,” a part of everyday nomenclature and hurled in a dehumanizing fashion at Muslims. Questions remain after the press conference: if Suu Kyi is truly interested in tackling the issue, why is she caving into the demands of extremist nationalists? Why did she bar any Muslims in her National League for Democracy (NLD) party from running in the 2015 elections? Why has her party stated that the Rohingya issue is “not a priority?” These questions will continue to plague Suu Kyi until she makes substantive moves to quell the doubt that her actions have fostered. (Courtesy of chicagomonitor.com)
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